Dream interpretation

All dreams essentially tell us 

 one important thing: “Wake up!” ;)

How much do you know about dreams?

Those strange, absurd, funny ‘movies’ we watch while we are sleeping. Do they have influence on your life? They bare messages that might be not so easy to interpret, but still it is a good idea to try. Why? It might become a powerful tool for decision making and solving our waking life problems, starting with quite real solutions to the task at work and finishing with prophetic dreams that predict the future. Our unconscious part generously providesall answersunder the cover of metaphors and signs that we have to learn how to interpret.

Many questions raise such as perception of time in dreamsor why pain is so realin them, why one image,a part of it or even the wholestory is constantly repeated or why onescenariois seen by several people. The answer is in how our brain works and introduced by Carl Jung ‘collective unconscious’.We are what we think. It is philosophical questions that could be useful and interesting for you, my dear reader, to think once in a while.

What are sources of dreams?

They include everyday life, physical response, archetypes, fears, problems to be solved, creativity and inventions. That is why some of them(for example dreams-reflection of the day's events)are not necessary to interpret while other can be real discovery.

You might say,‘I don’t have dreams or I don’t remember them’. But the fact is everyone see thembut we not always pay attention to that. Not to forget you can write a dream journal. Keep it next to your bed and write down everything you remember of your fantasies on waking. Make this a daily morning ritual before doing anything else. Write down everything, even if it doesn't make sense. Althoughthey seem out of place may end up being the most valuable insights.

A psychologist Christine Boyer gives some basic steps to help remember your night stories:

1. Intention

2. Preparation (take notes, keep a dream journal)

3. Appreciation (don’t judge)

4. Recognition (Play with the image as a metaphor.

Tell your dream to a friend or a family member who’s trustworthy and who will be respectful. Listen to their comments and insights. Read books about dreams and dreaming. Experiment with some of the ideas they present). Have you ever being chased in your dream or have you experienced flying? You are not alone. Some subjectsare common for all people all over the world. These are some common ones and their interpretation:

1.Being chased. Candice Janco, author of the Bedside Dream Dictionary: 500 Dream Symbols and Their Meanings, describes this dream (the most common) as an indication of a felt threat in your waking life. This threat can take the form of a menacing person or a strong emotion with which you are having difficulty coping. Try to determine who or what is trying to catchyou, where the dream takes place, and what your feelings are during the raceto understand what this dreams means to you. 

2. Dreams of flying through the air can be both wonderful and freighting at the same time. The important part of it is how you are acting; since this action itself represents your ambitions. Are you failing or trying to fly as high as possible? If you are flying with ease and enjoying the scene and landscape below, then it suggests that you are on top of a situation. Having difficulties staying in flight indicates a lack of power in controlling your own circumstances. If you are feeling fear it might mean you are afraid of challenges and of success.

 3. Being paralyzed (whether the dream was a nightmare or not) can mean that you have a feeling in your waking life that things are not under your control at all and you really don't know what to do.

Paralysis can also indicate that you are afraid to do or say something in day to day life. This will usually revolve around something that is important to you rather than something inconsequential. It might be that you have a decision to make and it's a scary one and you don't know what to do for the best. You can put your dream dictionary on the shelf.

Here are the most popular scientific psychological techniques whichwe tried to use during our meeting:

1)Free Association (Freud) or speaking without thinking

2) Symbol Amplification (Jung) or finding a range of possible meaning

3) Group Dream Work (Ullman) or group reflection on one dream

In this context I can’t help mentioning that there no dream-book, or powerful interpreter that will provide all answers for you, fortunately or unfortunately.

I would like to finish the article with one more questions: have you ever heard about lucid dreams, when while sleeping we know that we are dreaming and can control ourphantasms? Sounds unreal? Try this technique: during the day, repeatedly ask "Am I dreaming?" and perform some reality checks whenever you remember. With practice, if it happens enough, you will automatically remember it while sleeping and do it there as well.

If the average night's sleep is eight hours (ie one third of a day), one sleeps for one third of one's life. If you live, say, 75 years, that's 25 years asleep, or 9,125 days.

Use this time with purpose and sweet dreams! ;)